Interview with Can Evrenol director of Housewife By
James Whittington, Thursday 12th October 2017

Ahead of the UK premiere of his latest film Housewife at the Horror Channel Frightfest Halloween event, director Can Evrenol tells us why film is a 'pervert's art' shares his feelings for Fulci and reveals his contribution to Horror anthology, The Field Guide To Evil.

Was it important to make your follow-up film to Baskin in the English language?

CE: I wanted to make the film available for a wider audience and to test myself with a different language movie. I thought it was a fun thing to do.

How do you describe Housewife? What would be your perfect pitch line?

CE: Man, I had this crazy f****d-up dream last night! Do you want to see it?

Like Baskin, Housewife shares many similar themes of sexuality, family, social claustrophobia and surreal nightmares. Why are these elements so important to you?

CE: The day I find out why, I would probably quit filmmaking and move onto more tangible things in life.

Elaborate more on why you say Housewife is your homage to Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci?

CE: I am very inspired by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci films. Fulci is one of the reasons I decided to be a filmmaker. They are more like crazy people painting with their own blood. I love their attention to weird details and emphasis on atmosphere and music, while some others aspects of their filmmaking seems super shallow and cheap. I am not intending my films to be shallow and cheap at any level, but I'm taking huge risks and sometimes when there are flaws, I try to make them in tune with the madness of the movie.

Where did you find lead actress Clementine Poidatz and actor David Sakurai, who plays the head of the Umbrella of Love and Mind Cult?

CE: I met Clementine in Paris, through my French producers Vixens. We clicked right away. I thought she had the right face and state of mind. She read the script and said she loved it. I thought she must either a really good actress or crazy. Turns out she was a bit of both. We were blessed to have her as Holly. She was the angel of our team from day 1! David, I met in Fantasticfest, 2015. He was there with Liza The Fox Fairy. You gotta love that dancing grim reaper character! At the time, my reference for Bruce O'Hara was Joel Osteen. But after sharing the same taxi to the airport with David Sakurai, talking about movies and martial arts, he was the face of Bruce O'Hara for me. I really love both Holly and Bruce O'Hara. They are like my friends now, thanks to Clementine and David.

You don't make your films easy for the audience to either watch or follow, is it important to make them invest more in your quirky ideas?

CE: It's all about submitting yourself to somebody else's dream. That's why it's the pervert's art. For me, that's the most precious and unique thing about cinema. I also try to lose myself - as coherently as ? can - during the various stages of filmmaking. It's tricky, confusing and soul consuming, and people think you don't know about or care about the narrative, but it's not that. I love it so far.

Talk a little about your relationship with co-writer Cem Ozuduru who you worked with on both films?

CE: Cem is the reason I launched into Housewife after Baskin. It all started in our post Baskin movie nights. We had an overdose of male synergy in Baskin so this time we were chatting about making a revenge movie of sorts with a female lead. Then we decided to add some alien conspiracy in it. Then we went for English language. Then I think, it was me at some point who pushed it more to the way of dreams and dream logic. I felt that I had to bring it home. But the last 20 minutes were always there form the earliest draft. Making a personal film is like searching for your inner child. And in this movie at some point, my inner child and Cem's turned out to be different people. So we had some trouble keeping up the same dream together. And Cem had to leave the project for some days during the shoot and then in the editing too, because he was offered a top notch TV series work as writer and co-director. So ultimately I think Housewife ended up more of a film from my instinct, rather than the collaboration we started with. But still, Cem has been the biggest support for both Baskin and Housewife. Both times he was much more than the co-writer, and storyboard artist. We constantly share videos about cinematography, crazy movies, music and aliens. We will collaborate again for sure.

What are you hoping audiences will take from the film?

CE: A little slice of death for their dreams.

What's next? Will you stay with horror, or do you want to try something totally different?

CE: I recently completed a new short film, a segment for the upcoming horror anthology: The Field Guide To Evil, from the producers of ABC's of Death. I tried a different approach this time. Rather than the operatic, stylish and heavy metal tone I usually go for, this time I tried to make it more like an East European festival film, but with a slight dose of nightmares, and a demon of childbirth! The camera language is closer to what I want to aim for in my next projects. Next, there's a dark fairy tale that we have been cooking for a while with my producer Muge Buyuktalas. I'll try to bend it to my own world as much as I can, but hope to aim it for kids.

Has the Turkish Film Industry taken note of your international success? Are they now more open to genre production?

CE: No. I don't think they have. After Stranger Things and It, you know every producer is talking about making a horror movie/series these days, but we hate those kinds of motivations, don't we? They don't lead to sincere work.

Be prepared to feast on a chilling cornucopia of savage shocks, unsettling surprises and devilish delights as the UK's favourite horror fantasy event returns to the Glasgow Film Festival for its 13th year, from Thursday 1 March to Saturday 3 March 2018.

This year's bold line-up, once again housed at the iconic Glasgow Film Theatre, embraces the latest horror, fantasy and sci-fi discoveries from ten countries, spanning four continents, reflecting the world-wide popularity of the genre.

Ghost Stories remains one of the scariest stage shows ever seen and on Thursday night FrightFest kicks off with a special screening of Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson's smash hit phenomenon. Starring Martin Freedman, ...

Ghost Stories writer and director team Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson will join Hex Studio's Lawrie Brewster, FrightFest's Paul McEvoy and Glasgow Film Festival head honcho Allison Gardner on the judge's panel for the FrightFest Glasgow 90 Second Challenge.

Aspiring filmmakers living in Scotland are invited to create an entertaining Horror, Sci-Fi or Fantasy film within just 90 seconds.

Films must be shot in Scotland by Scottish residents and entries must not currently be available online. All submissions are free and must be received by Tuesday 13th February 2018. Filmmakers of entries selected to be screened will be notified by 23rd February 2018.

FrightFest, in association with Glasgow Film Festival, are delighted to announce an exciting new initiative to discover the next wave of emerging Scottish talent. FrightFest has always championed new film-makers since its inception in 2000. Now, for the very first time they are encouraging talent to rise to the challenge of creating an entertaining film within just 90 seconds.

The winning shorts will be screened both at the Horror Channel FrightFest Glasgow Film Festival event, held at the Glasgow Film Theatre on the 2nd/3rd March 2018 and FrightFest's London event in August 2018.

The rules for submission are that films should be no longer than 90 seconds and be in the Horror, Thriller, Scie...

Ahead of the UK premiere of his latest film Terrifier at the Horror Channel Frightfest Halloween event today, director Damien Leone talks about the 'Art' of extreme clowning, his debt to Tom Savini and a terrifying Halloween experience...

Art, The Clown initially appeared in your 2008 short The 9th Circle, then the 2011 award-winning short Terrifier and in your first feature All Hallow's Eve. What made you decide to give him a fourth outing?

DL: Up until this point I never felt like I fully showcased Art's potential. I believe between the short films and All Hallows' Eve, there only exists about 20 minutes of Art the Clown screen time. For a character who's done so little, he seems to really resonate with horr...

Ahead of the UK premiere of his debut feature Hostile at the Horror Channel Frightfest Halloween event, director Mathieu Turi shares his admiration for Tarantino, describes the challenges of filming in three continents and reveals his 'magic hour'.

You were born in Cannes so you grew up with film all around? When did you know for sure you wanted to direct?

MT: I think it's always been there. As a child, I used to steal my dad's VHS camera to make mini-movies. They were basically all about my Jurassic Park toys eating my dog or invading the garden. Later, I did more elaborate short films with friends, instead of studying. Then, I remember watching Braveheart and the making of the ...

Ahead of the UK premiere of his latest film It Came From The Desert at the Horror Channel Frightfest Halloween event, director Marko Makilaakso shares his admiration for Roger Corman, love of B-Movies, spoofing and overcoming homeland obstacles.

It Came From The Desert is inspired by Cinemaware's cult 1980s video game, which in turn was motivated by the giant creature feature craze infesting 1950s Hollywood. What was the main inspiration for you?

MM: There's so many movies and makers which inspired ICFTD, but the main inspiration was exactly that; creature feature infested 1950s Hollywood films, and the legendary Cinemaware Desert games and creature features and action comedies I grew up with in the 19...

This year, the all-day shocktoberfest is at the Empire Haymarket on Sat Oct 28, 2017 and embraces one world, one European and five UK premieres, spanning three continents.

From the emotional making of a low-budget slasher to zombie nightmares, Gothic horrors, an outrageously strange mind cult, a sci-fi alien action extravaganza, a comic strip creature feature and the last word in Killer Clowns, this year-s line-up is an eclectic mix of the quirky, unusual and extreme.

One of the best from Horror Channel FrightFest 2017 was a superior thriller, Killing Ground. This tension packed movie looked incredible on the big screen so we decided to chat to its director, Damien Power.

HC: Did Killing Ground take a long time to write and did it change as you progressed?

DP: It took eleven years from the germ of the idea to stepping onto location to start shooting. Luckily I wasn't working on it full time! Once we had a draft we were happy with, it took five years to put the financing jigsaw together. It's a long journey! The biggest change was that for a number of years it didn't really have a third act. It ended very abruptly at the moment of maximum jeopardy. Fort...

The final day of Horror Channel FrightFest is usually the most anticipated especially towards the final movie of the event, more on that later. There was so much going on with what possibly be the strongest line up of the whole festival.

Anyone with even just the passing interest in cinema couldn't have failed to have been impressed by Lowlife, the superb thriller from Ryan Prows. When a simple organ-harvesting caper goes awry, a twist of fate unites three of society's forgotten and ignored: El Monstruo, a disgraced Mexican Wrestler working as hired muscle for the local crime boss; Crystal, a recovering addict desperate enough to arrange a black-market kidney transplant to save her husband's life; and Randy, a t...

More new talent seemed to be around at Horror Channel FrightFest this year and one of the stand out movies for me was Where The Skin Lies from Michael Boucherie. Here he chats about this emotional movie.

HC: Did you know from a young age you wanted to be in the film-making business?

MB: Going to the movies with my family is a favourite childhood memory. There was no cinema in our home town, so it always involved a bit of a car trip. Afterwards we'd recount and quote our favourite scenes, for some movies up to this day. My mother also filmed and edited our home movies on Super 8, and she involved me in that. So, on some level I grew up with it. It didn't dawn on me that this was a v...

Sunday is traditionally a more quiet day at Horror Channel FrightFest as the attendees gear up for a fourth day of cutting edge horror cinema.

This wasn't the case as the event packed as much violence, blood, gore, tension, skin-crawling and gory programme of movies yet!

Killing Ground, an Australian bushland nerve shredder is an exceptionally tight piece of work that tells a story retrospectively and then brings everything up to date in one, nail-biting conclusion. It's strange to find a movie set in the open claustrophobic but this truly is. It's also incredibly heartfelt and honest, no one is safe in this movie believe me.

A day of premieres waited for us on day 3 of Horror Channel FrightFest. It was also the day of two incredibly inventive and most talked about movies of the whole event, Dominic Brunt's Attack of the Adult Babies and Adam Green's Victor Crowley.

Over in the Discovery Screens attendees had the chance to watch a gripping, psychological thriller, Diane. This complex, emotional and satisfying piece concerns one man's descent into a forgotten hell. The two leads, Carlee Avers and Jason Alan Smith bring a real life emotional depth (they are married in real life) to their characters. Played totally straight, the movie touches on areas few movies do and delivers a soulful and emotional conclusion. Another Frig...